Rack is back

  • Thread starter Thread starter daveyisgreat
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braintheory said:
I'd be far more interested in seeing a reissue of their rack power amps. Never tried them, but am intrigued in how they compare to other legendary rack power amps
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I have one. They're completely identical to the SLO power amp. they built using the exact same schematic/components and PCB with some parts removed compared to a full-blown rack SLO. I have no experience with Langner but I do prefer the Soldano power amp to any VHT. I also prefer the Mesa 2:90 to any VHT FWIW. I don't like VHT power amps voicing and feel.

braintheory said:
I didn't see it at first, but looks like there's at least a depth toggle switch right below in between the presence and master knob. A tight switch would be cool since they're not the tightest amps by default
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The SLO is maybe not the tighest amp ever but I find it tight enough for any musical endeavor, even extreme musical styles (I played death-metal for a long time). Tighter than it already is would be too dry and stiff/sterile feeling for my own taste.

saxxamafone said:
The rack SLO is insanely cool
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Agreed !! I love mine so much I feel irrationally compelled to buy the new one.

amplification-soldano-mini-stack-235194.jpg
 
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This should be interesting. I'm really interested in pricing, though I probably can't afford the three-channel one. That looks awesome.
 
Jack Luminous said:
I have one. They're completely identical to the SLO power amp. they built using the exact same schematic/components and PCB with some parts removed compared to a full-blown rack SLO. I have no experience with Langner but I do prefer the Soldano power amp to any VHT. I also prefer the Mesa 2:90 to any VHT FWIW. I don't like VHT power amps voicing and feel.



The SLO is maybe not the tighest amp ever but I find it tight enough for any musical endeavor, even extreme musical styles (I played death-metal for a long time). Tighter than it already is would be too dry and stiff/sterile feeling for my own taste.



Agreed !! I love mine so much I feel irrationally compelled to buy the new one.

amplification-soldano-mini-stack-235194.jpg
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Nice! Have you directly compared the tone running into the Soldano poweramp vs running into one of your SLO’s (just its poweramp)? I’d be curious. I think I may have seen also another model poweramp they made. I wonder if it also is like the SLO?

Overall I like my Langner more than my 2150 also. The 2150 is more modern, tight, precise and cleaner, but the Langner has a more interesting, rich, organic tone to me, but looser/more give, very ‘80’s, midrangey and breaks up sooner. I always described it as sounding like a bigger, more robust SLO power section with 6550’s and sounded that way to me too when compared to running through the power section of the SLO’s I had (sold my ‘89 and 2014 SLO recently)

I could get my SLO’s to be tight enough for most styles if desired, but still just preferred using other amps for that niche. With the right pickups, speakers, tubes, and boost I could get it a lot tighter and didn’t find it dry or stiff like that, but maybe it could be if it was actually tweaked/revoiced to be inherently tighter, not sure

it does look really cool as a rack unit! IMO cooler looking than the head version
 
braintheory said:
Nice! Have you directly compared the tone running into the Soldano poweramp vs running into one of your SLO’s (just its poweramp)? I’d be curious. I think I may have seen also another model poweramp they made. I wonder if it also is like the SLO?
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My SLO has been tweaked so the loop is after the tonestack. I have compared the SM100R and the SLO power amp section and both sound totally identical.
 
Jack Luminous said:
My SLO has been tweaked so the loop is after the tonestack. I have compared the SM100R and the SLO power amp section and both sound totally identical.
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Nice! How do you feel that tweak in the loop of your’s affects the amp’s tone? The 3 SLO’s I had all had normal loops (they all sucked lol)

The ‘89 SLO I had imo had a bit more organic tone, a little better feel and midrange (more Marshall-y), but the 2014 one was the biggest and punchiest SLO I tried. Also a bit more robust and less give than the 89
 
I feel moving the loop was needed especially when switching between clean and dirty where it did cause huge volume jumps with delay/reverb or various effects in the loop. It was a major annoyance. I also had the send/return levels slightly tweaked so it could handle rack and pedals. The level of each channel is now the send level of the loop. Much more convenient.

I also had a PPIMV installed that I used as return level but I never used it so I removed it entirely last time I biased the power tubes. I now use a CAJ loop interface with my SLO. It has independent send/return levels and parallel/kill dry function so it works great with the primitive loop of the SLO. Other than that I can't say it has changed the tone of the loop or amp at all.
 
braintheory said:
Nice! Have you directly compared the tone running into the Soldano poweramp vs running into one of your SLO’s (just its poweramp)? I’d be curious. I think I may have seen also another model poweramp they made. I wonder if it also is like the SLO?

Overall I like my Langner more than my 2150 also. The 2150 is more modern, tight, precise and cleaner, but the Langner has a more interesting, rich, organic tone to me, but looser/more give, very ‘80’s, midrangey and breaks up sooner. I always described it as sounding like a bigger, more robust SLO power section with 6550’s and sounded that way to me too when compared to running through the power section of the SLO’s I had (sold my ‘89 and 2014 SLO recently)

I could get my SLO’s to be tight enough for most styles if desired, but still just preferred using other amps for that niche. With the right pickups, speakers, tubes, and boost I could get it a lot tighter and didn’t find it dry or stiff like that, but maybe it could be if it was actually tweaked/revoiced to be inherently tighter, not sure

it does look really cool as a rack unit! IMO cooler looking than the head version
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To be fair there are six versions of the 2150. You've tried 1, 5 to go...
 
But it's PURPLE GUYS!! Synergy was asking an extra 100$ for the limited edition purple preamp!!!!!! Then again, who am i to judge. I just dropped 400$ for one of those limited edition RR Distortion + out of Europe because I missed out here. Imagine that, paying 375$ than the cost of those parts just for " limited edition".
 
braintheory said:
What are they and the differences between them? What I know about mine is it’s from the early 90’s and has those switches on back that some versions don’t have
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That's great but to know would mean buying more and comparing them.
 
Exo-metal said:
That's great but to know would mean buying more and comparing them.
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I figured you or someone here might know lol or did some comparisons. Yehuda has a different version than mine, so we may at least be able to compare 2 of the 6 versions. If they sound really close when setup the same, I wonder how the differences are, but so far only know the one I have
 
braintheory said:
I figured you or someone here might know lol or did some comparisons. Yehuda has a different version than mine, so we may at least be able to compare 2 of the 6 versions. If they sound really close when setup the same, I wonder how the differences are, but so far only know the one I have
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Really!!??? I think we would know here first. That would be very telling having all six versions in a shootout. I think you should do it bro.
 
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